Fantasy Fiction

Lesson 3: Mythic and Mythopoeic Fantasy

Robert Holdstock's Mythic Fantasy Books

Robert Holdstock is a master storyteller of Mythic Fantasy. His books are steeped in mythic themes and have won awards. He taps the roots of Jungian psychology, using archetypes in his sequence of books that explore the deeper truths of humanity.

Holdstock uses the symbol of the forest as the central starting point of his character’s journey into myth. Ryhope Wood is a remnant part of ancient forest on a British estate. The wood is bigger on the inside than on the outside. The deeper a character travels into the wood causes a greater change in the character’s life. What is found in this wood?

Characters encounter mythagos. These mythagos are creatures and beings created by the unconscious part of the human mind and given life in the woods. The mythagos are mythic images people like Robin Hood, King Arthur, and the Green Man. The further a character travels into the wood, the more primitive the images become.

Holdstock brought these ideas to fruition in Mythago Wood. It is the story of a man returning from World War II to find his brother obsessed with getting his dead mythago wife back. The brothers travel deeper into the wood, encountering more dangerous things as they confront the traumas left by war and a dead father. They can’t reach the heart wood, which controls even more deeper meanings.

Lavondyss is even more complex. A young girl named Tallis is drawn into the wood by mythagos. She goes into the forest, spending a lifetime to reach Lavondyss, the heart of everything. Tallis undergoes a great transformation in this dark intricate tale of a woman’s journey.

The sundered family is part of the third book The Hollowing. The characters venture into the wood to save a lost boy. They encounter mythagos of the Wild Hunt and Arthurian characters. Issues of child abuse and divorce are the central themes explored in this book.

The story of "Culhwch and Olwen" from the Welsh Mabinogion is the operating myth of Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn. In this book, the characters travel the forest in search of the gateway of death. This book is about the characters transcending death through love in their search for lost loved ones. It is another deep journey through the inner depths of truth.

Merlin's Wood takes place in the forest of Brociliande in Brittany, but has many of the same characteristics as the Mythago Wood books. The local people are caught up in a war between the imprisoned Merlin and a wild, vicious Viviane. Mythological forces change the people involved in the dark forces of the myth.

In his next book, Ancient Echoes, Holdstock explores the inner regions of the human mind and dreams. His main character Jack Chatwin pursues the two mythic figures of Grayface and Greenface within the dreams of his mind and in the real world. A pre-Roman England serves as a backdrop to intrigue readers with the workings of the human mind.

Mr. Holdstock's recent books are part of a series called Merlin Codex. These books explore the mixing of Arthurian and Greek myth. Merlin is a forever young magic user that meets up with Jason and joins the Argonauts in the pursuit of the Golden Fleece. They meet again in the modern world to pursue the quest of finding Jason's lost sons. Several mythic themes are explored in the first two books of Celtika and The Iron Grail.

Robert Holdstock is a master Fantasy author of Mythic Fantasy. All of his books search the depths of our unconscious to find the deeper truths within ourselves. His books are memorable and a good starting place to read Mythic Fantasy.

  1  2  3  4  5